Project: New Game Development

As you may or may not have noticed along the menu bar up there is a page called ‘Project 3013’ – This is our current in-development game. Having given at least 2 minutes thought to the premise of some of the drivel I’m intending to post on this blog, I thought a stage by stage, as and when, development of the game might be of use.

‘Project 3013’ is actually another game I made for fun down my local gaming club – definitely the best place to start. The ‘rulebook’ is full of typos, printed in black and white and put into a cheap plastic folder – I was very proud of it at the time.

I’m not going to bore you with stage by stage game development mainly because the bulk of the game is written (including fluff!)- it just needs to be (heavily) processed.

How you go about coming up with a game is a very personal process, although my top tips though for coming up with a game are:

From the start all you actually need is a pad of paper (plain works best – so you can doodle templates, etc.) every single type/shape of dice you can muster and tape measure.

Have the inspirational moment of “ooh that might work”.

Start playing the game adjusting rules as you go

Jot down everything that happens, dice used, any game mechanics that work, and highlight any obvious issues early on.

Do not use a computer until you’ve filled at least 10 pages of random drawings, illegible handwriting and coffee stains.

If you start to use a computer from the off you can easily get distracted by spell checking, formatting and the urge to look at websites like www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com and you won’t get anywhere fast.

And now as you’ve clicked on that link and have been distracted I’ll leave it there for today… More game development as it happens…